And is like others, glorious when

'Tis great and large, but base, if mean:

The former rides in triumph for it,

The latter in a two-wheel'd chariot,
For daring to profane a thing
So sacred with vile bungling.

Next these the brave Magnano came,
Magnano, great in martial fame;
Yet when with Orsin he wag'd fight,
'Tis sung he got but little by't:
Yet he was fierce as forest boar,
Whose spoils upon his back he wore,
As thick as Ajax' sevenfold shield,
Which o'er his brazen arms he held;
But brass was feeble to resist.

325

330

335

The fury of his armed fist;

340

Nor cou'd the hardest iron hold out

Against his blows, but they would through 't.

In magic he was deeply read;
As he that made the brazen head;
Profoundly skill'd in the black art,
As English Merlin for his heart;
But far more skilful in the spheres,
Than he was at the sieve and shears.

345

v. 33.] Simeon Wait, a tinker, as famous an Independent preacher as Burroughs, who, with equal blasphemy to his Lord of Hosts, would style Oliver Cromwell the Archangel giving battle to the Devil.

He cou'd transform himself to colour,
As like the devil as a collier;

350

As like the hypocrites, in show,

Are to true saints, or crow to crow.

Of warlike engines he was author,
Devis'd for quick dispatch of slaughter:
The cannon, blunderbuss, and saker,
He was th' inventor of, and maker:
The trumpet and the kettledrum
Did both from his invention come.
He was the first that e'er did teach

355

To make, and how to stop a breach.

360

A lance he bore with iron pike,

Th' one half wou'd thrust, the other strike;

And when their forces he had join'd,

He scorn'd to turn his parts behind.

He Trulla lov'd, Trulla more bright Than burnish'd armour of her knight; A bold virago, stout and tall,

As Joan of France, or English Mall:

365

v. 365. The daughter of James Spencer, debauched by Magnano the tinker. So called because the tinker's wife or mistress was commonly called his truli.

16.] Alluding probably to Mary Carlton, called Kentish Moll, but more commonly The German Princess; a person notorious at the time this First Part of Hudibras was published. She was transported to Jamaica 1671, but returning from transportation too soon, she was hanged at Tyburn Jan. 22, 1672-3.

Thro' perils both of wind and limb,
Thro' thick and thin she follow'd him
In ev'ry adventure h' undertook, '
And never him or it forsook:
At breach of wall, or hedge surprise,
She shar'd i' th' hazard and the prize;
At beating quarters up, or forage,
Behav'd herself with matchless courage,
And laid about in fight more busily
Than th' Amazonian Dame Penthesile.
And tho' some critics here cry shame,
And say our authors are to blame,
That (spight of all philosophers,

370

375

380

Make feeble ladies, in their works,
To fight like termagants and Turks;
To lay their native arms aside,
Their modesty, and ride astride;
To run atilt at men, and wield
Their naked tools in open field;

390

v. 382. This and the three following lines not in the two first editions of 1664.

As stout Armida, bold Thalestris,

And she that would have been the mistress

Of Gundibert, but he had grace,

395

And rather took a country lass;

They say 'tis false without all sense,.

But of pernicious consequence

To government, which thev suppose
Can never be upheld in prose;
Strip Nature naked to the skin,
You'll find about her no such thing..
It may be so, yet what we tell
Of Trulla, that's improbable,
Shall be depos'd by that have seen 't,
Or, what's as good, produc'd in print;
And if they will not take our word,
We'll prove it true upon record.

The upright Cerdon next advanc't,
Of all his race the valiant'st;
Cerdon the Great, renown'd in song,
Like Herc'les, for repair of wrong:

v. 409. Cerdon.] A one-eyed cobler, like his brother, Colonel Hewson. The Poet observes that his chicf talent lay in preaching. Is it not then indecent, and beyond the rules of decorum, to introduce him into such rough company? No; it is probable he had but newly set up the trade of a Teacher; and we may conclude that the Poet did not think that he had so much sanctity as to debar him the pleasure of his beloved diversion of Bear-baiting.

He rais'd the low, and fortify'd

The weak against the strongest side:
Ill has he read that never hit

On him in Muses' deathless writ.

He had a weapon keen and fierce,

415

That thro' a bull-hide shield wou'd pierce,

And cut it in a thousand pieces,

Tho' tougher than the Knight of Greece his,

420

With whom his black-thumb'd ancestor

Was comrade in the ten years' war:

For when the restless Greeks sat down

So many years before Troy town,
And were renown'd, as Homer writes,

425

For well-sol'd boots no less than fights,

And would make three to cure one flaw.
Learned he was, and cou'd take note,
Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote:
But preaching was his chiefest talent,
Or argument, in which being valiant,

435

V. 43. Mechanics of all sorts were then preachers, and some of them much followed and admired by the mob. I am to tell thee, Christian reader," says,